Originally leased in 1759 to Arthur Guinness at IR£45 (Irish pounds) per year for 9,000 years, St. James's Gate has been the home of Guinness ever since. It became the largest brewery in Ireland in 1838, and the largest in the world by 1886, with an annual output of 1.2 million barrels.[1] Although no longer the largest brewery in the world, it is still the largest brewer of stout in the world. The company has since bought out the originally leased property,[2] and during the 19th and early 20th centuries the brewery owned most of the buildings in the surrounding area, including many streets of housing for brewery employees, and offices associated with the brewery. The brewery also made all of its own power using its own power plant.[citation needed]

There is an attached exhibition on the 250-year-old history of Guinness, called the Guinness Storehouse.

Arthur Guinness started brewing ales in Leixlip, County Kildare, and then from 1759 at the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin. On 31 December he signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery.[3][4] However, the lease is no longer in effect because the brewery property has been bought out when it expanded beyond the original 4-acre site.[2]

Ten years after establishment, on 19 May 1769 Guinness exported his beer (he had ceased ale brewing by then) for the first time, when six and a half barrels were shipped to England. The business expanded by adopting steam power and further exporting to the English market. On the death of Benjamin Guinness in 1868 the business was worth over £1 million, and the brewery site had grown from about 1 acre to over 64 acres. In 1886 his son Edward sold 65 percent of the business by a public offering on the London Stock Exchange for £6 million.

In 1986, Guinness PLC was in the midst of a bidding war for the much larger Distillers Company. In the closing stages, Guinness' stock rose 25 percent — which was unusual, since the stock of the acquiring company usually falls in a takeover situation. Guinness paid several people and institutions, most notably American arbitrageurIvan Boesky, about $38 million USD to buy $300 USD million worth of Guinness stock. The effect was to increase the value of its offer for Distillers, whose management favored merging with Guinness.

In the course of the investigation, it emerged that Bank Leu was involved in half of the purchases. Two of Guinness' directors signed under-the-table agreements in which Bank Leu subsidiaries in Zug and Lucerne bought 41 million Guinness shares. Guinness secretly promised to redeem the shares at cost, including commissions. To fulfill its end of the bargain, Guinness deposited $76 million with Bank Leu's Luxembourg subsidiary.

As Distillers was worth more than Guinness plc, the Guinness family shareholding in the merged company went below 10 percent, and today no member of the family sits on the board. Guinness acquired the Distillers Company in 1986.[7]

The company merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo plc, capitalised in 2006 at about 40 billion euros.[8] Although not officially fully taken over, the Guinness family still owns 51 percent of the brewery. The Guinness brewery in Park Royal, London closed in 2005. The production of all Guinness sold in the UK and Ireland was switched to St. James's Gate Brewery Dublin.[9]

The main product is Guinness Draught, a 4.2% ABVdry stout that is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide. For many years a portion of the drink was aged to give a sharp lactic flavour, although Guinness has refused to confirm whether this still occurs. The thick creamy head is the result of the beer being mixed with nitrogen when being poured. It is popular with Irish people both in Ireland and abroad and, in spite of a decline in consumption over recent years, is the best-selling alcoholic drink of all time in Ireland[10][11] where Guinness & Co. makes almost €2 billion annually. The brewery also produces Guinness Original, a 4.3% ABV version of the Draught, without the nitrogen;[12] Kaliber, a low alcohol pale lager; Guinness Bitter, a 4.4% bitter sold in a can with a widget; and the 7.5% Guinness Foreign Extra Stout.

Guinness Original/Extra Stout: 4.2 or 4.3% ABV in Ireland and the rest of Europe, 4.1% in Germany, 4.8% in Namibia and South Africa, 5% in the United States and Canada, and 6% in Australia and Japan.

Guinness Foreign Extra Stout: 7.5% abv version sold in Europe, America, Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. The basis is an unfermented but hopped Guinness wort extract shipped from Dublin, which is added to local ingredients and brewed locally. The strength can vary, for example, it is sold at 5% ABV in China, 6.5% ABV in Jamaica and East Africa, and 8% ABV in Singapore.[14] In Nigeria a proportion of sorghum is used. Foreign Extra Stout is blended with a small amount of intentionally soured beer.[15]

Guinness Special Export Stout, sold in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, originally brewed in 1945 for the NAAFI to be sent to British troops stationed in Europe.[16]

Malta Guinness, a non-alcoholic sweet drink, produced in Nigeria and exported to the UK and Malaysia.

Guinness Mid-Strength, a low-alcohol stout test-marketed in Limerick, Ireland in March 2006[17] and Dublin from May 2007:[18] 2.8% ABV.

Kaliber, a premium alcohol-free lager. It is brewed as a full strength lager; then at the end of the brewing process, the alcohol is removed: 0.05% ABV.

Guinness Red, brewed in exactly the same way as Guinness except that the barley is only lightly roasted so that it produces a lighter, slightly fruitier red ale; test-marketed in Britain in February 2007: 4.1% ABV.[19]

250 Anniversary Stout, released in the US, Australia and Singapore on 24 April 2009:[20] 5% ABV.

Guinness Nitro IPA, introduced in September 2015. An ale made with 5 variteis of hops (admiral, celeia, topaz, challenger, and cascade). It is packaged in cans with a nitrogen widget at 5.8% ABV.

In October 2005, Guinness announced the Brewhouse Series, a limited-edition collection of draught stouts available for roughly six months each. There were three beers in the series.

'Toucan Brew was introduced in May 2006. It was named after the cartoon toucan used in many Guinness advertisements. This beer had a crisper taste with a slightly sweet aftertaste due to its triple-hopped brewing process.

North Star was introduced in October 2006 and sold until into late 2007. Three million pints of North Star were sold in the latter half of 2007.[21]

Despite an announcement in June 2007 that the fourth Brewhouse stout would be launched in October that year,[22] no new beer appeared and, at the end of 2007, the Brewhouse series appeared to have been quietly cancelled.

For a short time in the late 1990s, Guinness produced the "St James's Gate" range of craft-style beers, available in a small number of Dublin pubs. The beers were: Pilsner Gold, Wicked Red Ale, Wildcat Wheat Beer and Dark Angel Lager.

The grandson of the original Arthur Guinness, Sir Benjamin Guinness, was Lord Mayor of Dublin and was created a baronet in 1867, only to die the next year. His eldest son Arthur, Baron Ardilaun (1840–1915), sold control of the brewery to Sir Benjamin's third son Edward (1847–1927), who became 1st Earl of Iveagh. Iveagh launched the company on the London Stock Exchange in 1886. Up until then the only other partners outside of the Guinness family were members of the Purser family who helped run the brewery throughout most of the nineteenth century. He, his son & great-grandson, the 2nd and 3rd Earls, chaired the Guinness company until the 3rd earl's death in 1992. There are no longer any members of the Guinness family on the board.

On 17 June 2007, The Sunday Independent first reported that Diageo was considering selling most of the St. James's Gate Brewery to take advantage of high property prices in Ireland.[23] The story was widely picked up by both national and international media organisations, but the proposal to build a new Dublin brewery at Leixlip on land belonging to Desmond Guinness was cancelled by the end of 2008. By then Irish property prices had dropped, and so the possibility of selling much of the current brewery to meet the lower cost of building a new one had passed.[24]

The following day, the Irish Daily Mail ran a follow-up story with a double page spread complete with images and a history of the plant since 1759. Initially, Diageo said that talk of a move was pure speculation but in the face of mounting speculation in the wake of the Sunday Independent article, the company confirmed that it is undertaking a "significant review of its operations". This review is largely due to the efforts of the company's ongoing drive to reduce the environmental impact of brewing at the St James's Gate plant.[25]

On 23 November 2007, an article appeared in the Evening Herald, a Dublin newspaper, stating that Dublin City Council, in the best interests of the city of Dublin, had put forward a motion to prevent planning permission ever being granted for development of the site thus making it very difficult for Diageo to sell off the site for residential development.

On 9 May 2008, Diageo announced that the St James's Gate brewery will remain open and undergo renovations, but that breweries in Kilkenny and Dundalk will be closed by 2013 when a new larger brewery is opened near Dublin. The result will be a loss of roughly 250 jobs across the entire Diageo/Guinness workforce in Ireland.[26] Two days later, the Sunday Independent again reported that Diageo chiefs had met with TánaisteMary Coughlan, the deputy leader of the Government of Ireland, about moving operations to Ireland from the UK to benefit from its lower corporation tax rates. Several UK firms have made the move to pay Ireland's 12.5 percent rate rather than the UK's 28 percent rate.[27] Diageo released a statement to the London Stock Exchange denying the report.[28]

St. James' Gate in Dublin was traditionally a main starting point for Irish pilgrims to begin their journey on the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James). The pilgrims' passports were stamped here before setting sail, usually for A Coruña, north of Santiago. It is still possible for Irish pilgrims to get these traditional documents stamped both at Guinness Storehouse and St James' Church, and many do, while on their way to Santiago de Compostella.[29]

Guinness Storehouse, the "Home of Guinness", is Dublin's most popular tourist attraction. A converted brewing factory, it is now a Guinness museum, incorporating elements from the old brewing factory to explain the history of its production. Some of the old brewing equipment is on show, as well as stout ingredients, brewing techniques, advertising methods and storage devices.

The exhibition takes place over seven floors, in the shape of a 14 million pint glass of Guinness. The final floor is the Gravity Bar, which has an almost 360° panorama over the city, where visitors can claim a free pint of "the black stuff".

The storehouse is where they used to add the yeast to the beer for fermentation.

Guinness Storehouse visitors do not get to see the beer being brewed in front of them, but from various vantage points in the building you may see parts of the brewhouse, vats, grain silos and the keg yard.

^ ab"Guinness Storehouse FAQ". Guinness-Storehouse.com. Retrieved 18 March 2012. Q:I s the 9,000-year lease still valid? A: The 9,000-year lease signed in 1759 was for a 4 acre brewery site. Today, the brewery covers over 50 acres, which grew up over the past 200 years around the original 4 acre site. The 1759 lease is no longer valid as the Company purchased the lands outright many years ago.

^Barry, Dan (28 August 2000). "In Ireland's Pubs, a Startling Trend". Lisdoonvarna Journal. The New York Times. Retrieved 10 April 2008. ... Guinness stout remains the best-selling alcoholic beverage in Ireland, over the last year its consumption here has declined by nearly 4 percent.

^"Diageo Beer sales continue decline". Drinks Industry Ireland. Barkeeper. 26 February 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2008. Nevertheless, Guinness continues to be Ireland's number one beer 'by a wide margin' according to Michael Patten, Group Corporate Relations Director at Diageo Ireland, 'More than 40 per cent of all draught beer sold in Ireland is a Guinness'.

^Formerly it was blended with beer that soured naturally as a result of fermenting in ancient oak tuns with a Brettanomyces population. It is now made with pasteurized beer that has been soured bacterially. Protz, R. (1996). The Ale Trail. Kent: Eric Dobby Publishing. pp. 174–176.